Gifted Awareness Week June 14 – 20

Posted by: A Gray on: June 14, 2010

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 This week is Gifted Awareness week and having looked at the whole issue of gifted children in a previous post, so this time I’m going to focus on those kids considered to be ‘Twice Exceptional’ – gifted kids with disabilities.

‘Twice Exceptional Children’, have extra issues to contend with on top of their giftedness such as Aspergers, Dyslexia, Cerebral Palsy, Hearing Issues and Vision Issues, just to name a few. This often means that these kids often have their giftedness ignored or overlooked by teachers and for some they may not even be considered as being gifted as they are deemed too hard to test or just not worth the time! Yet these children have every right to have their giftedness recognised and be allowed to experience the same opportunities as other gifted kids.

There is no accurate statistic that reflects how many gifted individuals there are with specific disabilities.  However, a conservative estimate is that 2 percent of identified disabled children could be classified as gifted. (Whitmore & Maker, 1985)

Many gifted support groups will recognise the children with learning disabilities or Aspergers as being ‘gifted but as the list of issues but very few recognise those with more serious issues. The website Twice Gifted has information on recognising the signs of giftedness in children with visual, hearing, physical and those with learning disabilities. Another good site is Uniquely Gifted which has a list of articles on being gifted and having a disability (quite an extensive list). The site is American based but the general information is still the same.

As a parent of a child who has Aspergers and Dyspraxia (incl Dysgraphia), while also being gifted, it has been a struggle for him. Firstly are the teachers who decide that because he is smart that then he can obviously overcome his Aspergers issues without assistance; then there are the teachers who while recognising his giftedness are ‘frightened’ of his Aspergers. With a good support base around him he has achieved so much but he still gets bored in class and is not adequately challenged in an appropriate way.

Amanda, mother to Kyle age 10